REFLECTIONS: A Birthday Bash
by Teresita Bacani-Oropilla, MD
What does one expect of birthday celebrations? This one seemed to fulfill them. Balloons, posters, flowers graced every nook and corner of the retirement activity rooms. A line of residents and their visitors was passing through a heaping table that dispensed hot dogs, steaming corn, crackling chips and ice cream. Some maneuvered on their own, others were escorted and helped to their decorated tables by helpful aides and relatives.
They were celebrating the birthdays of three centenarians, aged over a hundred, the oldest 106 years old! Visitors ranged from below a hundred to 3 months old for the elders to see and bless!
Thus in a circuitous way, these centenarians, like many like them, helped others survive the horrors of war, the Depression, homelessness and loneliness.
A multitude of events, good and bad, can occur in a hundred years. So can a lot of good people ease those who suffer? Our three centenarians were among these!
Food for thought?! Would you want to live to be a hundred or more? Have a crown of flowers on your head? Have people who love you celebrate with a grand party?
Would you? Dr. Bacani-Oropilla is a retired pediatrician and psychiatrist.
What is it about birthdays that we celebrate? From the moment a baby announces its life on earth by its first cry, he / she proclaims an entity that has joined us, the living. We wish it well and help it in its helplessness so it will grow to help others in its turn!
For we celebrate“ LIFE!”
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